Tag Archives: sin tax

An effort to cut down on the number of homeless pets in one Texas city has prompted officials to slap pet owners with a $75 sin tax to help deter their furry friends from breeding. Failure to register your pet’s new litter within 14 days “could result in fines and penalties,” states El Paso’s new animal ordinance.

City officials have also limited dogs and cats to 2 planned or unplanned pregnancies a year in an effort to prevent shelters from being overwhelmed. Professional breeders complain that the city’s crackdown on careless pet owners unfairly punishes their responsible businesses that provide in-demand pets to welcoming new homes.

El Paso Animal Services received $250,000 from the city council to step-up its enforcement efforts that will include monitoring newspapers and other media to ensure citizens selling puppies and kittens have registered their new litters and paid the sin tax for their pets’ intentional or unintentional ‘romantic encounters.’

Big government bureaucrats in Santa Clara County, Calif., recently robbed kids of their beloved Happy Meal toys and today they came back for seconds, this time, bullying smokers and punishing tobacco retailers for selling a product that is still legal for adult purchase in all 50 states.

Supervisor Ken “Unhappy Meal” Yeager and his merry band of nanny state ninnies on Tuesday passed an ordinance that slaps tobacco retailers with an annual $425 fine vending permit fee. New retailers are also required to pay a one-time “permit application” fine fee, the San Jose Mercury reports.

The Board of Supervisors claims these new fines fees were established to extinguish teenage smoking, despite the fact that it is already illegal in all 50 states for tobacco retailers to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18.

On Nov. 10, the Nanny State Liberation Front was among the first to report that Santa Clara County was “targeting smokers in their own apartments, condominiums and townhouses.” The American Lung Association commended the county for its’ ‘successful’ month-long assault on smokers’ rights, declaring their fascist crackdowns “among the toughest in the nation.”

Next up, Yeager & Co. will float a ban targeting flavored tobacco products that will likely include cigars and pipe tobacco. Will you fight back or watch another freedom enjoyed by responsible adults go up in smoke?

Contact Ken Yeager on Facebook (click “Send Ken a Message” below his picture) or get in touch with him the old-fashioned way:

Vermont Public Radio reports the state’s Attorney General Bill Sorrell wants the Legislature to enact a “one cent per ounce excise tax on sugar sweetened beverages.” He blames soda for the state’s rising obesity rates, despite Vermont maple syrup having nearly the same calorie count as sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

Mom always said, "Everything in moderation." Mr. Sorrell, nobody's asking you to be their mother.

The sugar in maple syrup is sucrose and invert sugar. White sugar is sucrose, whereas invert sugar is a breakdown product of sucrose. There is no evidence that maple syrup is healthier than white sugar.

Here’s how we see it, Mr. Sorrell: Your state consistently leads the U.S. in the production of maple syrup with 890,000 gallons produced in 2010 alone. That makes Vermont a contributor to the so-called obesity epidemic when millions of consumers nationwide smother steaming hot plates of pancakes with with your state’s pure maple syrup.

In the spirit of fairness, what are your thoughts about asking state legislators nationwide to enact sin taxes on Vermont maple syrup, Mr. Sorrell? All is fair in love and anti-obesity crusades, isn’t that right?

Contact Attorney General Bill Sorrell and ask him why he’s such a huge hypocrite:

In case you missed it, Massachusetts voters on Tuesday successfully repealed the 6.25% sin tax placed on alcohol, beer and wine last year. Nanny state advocates are now whining that the state will lose about $110 million in annual revenue that would have been funneled to anti-alcohol advocacy programs and organizations.

Jonathan D. Scott, president and executive director of Boston’s Victory Programs Inc., is upset that his organization will no longer be getting a piece of the alcohol sin tax pie:

For years, the sale of alcohol in Massachusetts has been treated as a necessity along with clothing and food, despite the serious harm it can create in people’s lives. This tax served as recognition that alcohol, like cigarettes, should not be considered a necessity, and created a fair way to fund important services.

Do you find anything “fair” about forcing responsible adult beverage consumers to foot the bill for rehabilitating those who abuse alcohol? Sound-off on Scott’s pro-sin tax/anti-alcohol diatribe in the Boston Globe’scomment section.

"People have to stop exaggerating the numbers about childhood obesity - that's not to say that it is not an issue but you know, hysteria, fear campaigns and exaggeration are not very scientific," said Dr O'Dea, who is Associate Professor in Health Education and Nutrition.

Now that a few more legislators with common sense have been elected to office on the federal, state and local levels, it’s time to start repealing behavior modification taxes, aka ‘sin taxes,’ that seek to control the food and beverages lower income families consume. Australia’s NineMSN.com news reveals junk food taxes do nothing to relieve poverty or curb obesity:

Australia’s childhood obesity problem is an “exaggeration” and calls for a junk food tax will do little to relieve the poverty that is its major driver, an expert says.

The rate of childhood obesity among low income families was almost double that seen across middle and high income families, said Dr Jennifer O’Dea from the University of Sydney.

She said a tax on junk foods, as called for by a rising number of health experts, would only place extra financial strain on those families when a “social justice” approach was needed.

And while not downplaying the serious health problems that flow from a life of obesity, Dr O’Dea also said the scale of this problem for Australian children has become increasingly overblown.

“People have to stop exaggerating the numbers about childhood obesity – that’s not to say that it is not an issue but you know, hysteria, fear campaigns and exaggeration are not very scientific,” said Dr O’Dea, who is Associate Professor in Health Education and Nutrition.

Does trampling on citizens' rights and liberties count as "torture," Eric?

1. Eric Mar | San Francisco Supervisor (D)* – Leading the city’s now infamous assault on children’s beloved Happy Meal toys, incumbent Supervisor Mar has also been busy in recent months trying to regulate citizen’s intake of soft drinks. “I’m proud that we protect the public’s health,” Mar says, even if he uses shoddy data to force his radical anti-choice agenda down the throats of citizens both young and old. When Mar’s not telling citizens what they can’t eat and drink, he can be seen pressuring pet stores to quit selling dogs and cats. *Mar’s not running for office right now, but it looks like he has his eyes on becoming the city’s next mayor. Don’t forget about him. And, trust us, we won’t let you.

Proud to be a jackass legislating in her own special interests.

2. Rep. Eileen Cody | Wash. State House (D-Seattle) – Washington State’s longest serving legislator is also its most predictable anti-tobacco foe, stopping at nothing to ensure smokers quit offending her. Earlier this year, Cody sponsored HB 2493 in a last ditch effort to tax cigarettes in to oblivion. “I really don’t care,” Cody said, about the potential for the state to actually lose tobacco sin tax revenue because cigarettes would no longer be affordable for most Washingtonians to purchase; her top priority, she proudly proclaims, is to “force people to quit smoking.”

Don't be fooled by Martin's 'family friendly' marketing schtick.

3. Grier Martin | N.C. House (D-34) — Earlier this year, Martin was influential in passing a statewide ban on chocolate milk and juice products at child care facilities. Ironically, he says parents “can cram [their kids] with ice cream, sweets, 50-percent-fat milk, anything they want” after they get home from day care, perhaps as a symbol of goodwill between the nanny state and parents. Here’s our warning to concerned voters: Don’t accept candy from strangers and don’t think for a moment that Martin isn’t interested in ultimately controlling every aspect of your children’s lives from the cradle to the grave.

No tax is too sweeping or absurd for Basnight and Hackney.

4 & 5. Marc Basnight | N.C. Senate (D) and Joe Hackney Speaker | N.C. House of Representatives (D) – These two big government bureaucrats colluded in 2008 to propose a revenue-generating scheme that would monetarily penalize motorists for driving too much. Family vacations and weekend getaways, if vehicles’ owners were already over the limit, would warrant a “Vehicle Miles Traveled” tax to compensate the state for needlessly clogging roadways.

6. Dean Florez | Calif. Senate Majority Leader (D) – Florez has a knack for citing alarming nationwide statistics to boost the credibility of his statewide anti-soda crusade. Perhaps, that’s because he is a puppet of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA), who Florez even admits are the soda tax bill’s “sponsors.” While the CCPHA describes itself as a “nonpartisan” public health organization, its Board of Directors includes The Huffington Post’s Joel Epstein, a partisan journalist who makes no efforts to inform readers of his affiliation with the organization he advises in its ongoing war against consumers and the beverage industry. One thing is certain: Neither Florez nor his CCPHA cronies trust citizens to make the ‘right’ choices when it comes to the food and beverages they consume.

'Reality' is a lost concept in Hieftje's big head.

7. John Hieftje | Mayor, Ann Arbor, Mich. (D) – DailyKos.com, the virtual mouthpiece of the radical Left, calls Ann Arbor “one of the most liberal cities in the U.S.” And, by their account, “Mayor John Hieftje is doing a good job,” so that should be reason enough to include him on our “Least Wanted” list. According to his campaign website, Hieftje boasts, “I led City Council in setting the policy for the complete re-organization of the City bureaucracy, now saving taxpayers over $15 million per year.” As A2Politico.com’s Margaret Wong points out, Hieftje reduced staff, but wages increased. “We’re paying more for less,” Wong reveals. “We’re getting less for more.”

Squeaky clean good looks can be deceiving.

8. Greg Fischer | Mayoral Candidate, Louisville, Ky. (D) – When Greg Fischer announced in late September that he would make his administration “the most open, honest and transparent in the nation,” he probably wasn’t expecting anyone to take him to task on that promise before he got elected. A few short weeks later, citizen watchdogs and even the local media were raising concerns about an emerging ‘pay-to-play’ scandal in which Fischer allegedly offered “a position of influence in city government” in exchange for the endorsement of a third party opponent who quit the race.

9. Vince Gray | Mayoral Candidate, Washington, D.C. (D) — According to Gray’s campaign website, “We need a mayor who will focus on the entire birth-to-24 education process.” If you think that sounds like another big government cradle-to-the-grave entitlement program, you’re right! Gray’s education plan includes all of the trendy code words you’ve come to expect from “community organizers” like President Obama and ‘progressive’ leaders like House Speaker Pelosi who think they can solve all of our problems, even if we don’t want their help! Want a “community buy-in” with “community as a part of the solution” to your child’s educational pursuits? How about making learning “sustainable?” Let’s not forget that everyone’s going to be “valued and empowered!” And, top it all off with some “accountability” and Gray claims there’ll be no more “bureaucracy” in D.C. Public Schools. But first, you must elect Gray so you can see what’s really in his education plan.

Mahan is a 'go along to get along' big government bureaucrat who can't be trusted to legislate in the people's best interests.

10. Patricia Mahan | Mayor, City of Santa Clara, Calif. (D) – Mayor Mahan has remained silent on Santa Clara County’s recently enacted ordinance banning toys in children’s Happy Meals, but the fact remains that parents residing in her city remain affected by the county’s nanny state crackdown on their freedom to determine what their children consume. According to the City of Santa Clara’s website, “Santa Clara is a family oriented and business friendly city, with an award-winning ethics program and a commitment to fostering public trust.” If Mahan won’t stick-up for families and businesses that are being treated unfairly in her city, then she must support nanny state bureaucrats like Supervisor Ken Yeager who feel entitled to dictate how and what parents feed their own children.